MacGregor Elementary School is looking to feed their students paper and ink this month, as the theme is "Appetite for Reading". The school wants to use I Love to Read Month to encourage students to pop open a good book and Principal Bryan Marriott says the staff gets behind this initiative every year.
"So, we're going to have a day where we have some popcorn made for all the students and some drinks," says Marriott. "We do book bingos throughout the month and give away some free books for students. (We have) a school-wide I Love to Read pancake breakfast at the end of the month. We've got the Manitoba Theatre for Young People coming out to perform to our students in Grades 3 to 6. It's just a jam-packed month where there's something exciting and new happening every day."
Already this month, the Portage Terriers and Brandon Wheat Kings have visited the school and played some hockey with the kids to get them excited. Marriott says it's not hard to get the students into I Love to Read Month. He adds, teachers do more reading in February, too, so it's a win-win for everyone!
"We make it a pretty big deal here at the school, just like lots of schools in the province. We really do our best to get different people in from the community, and surrounding areas, to read to our students, and that's for a couple of purposes," says Marriott. "It's good to have guests read because they talk about books and how it's important to be a reader and it's just good to see different people to celebrate literature. People have different genres of books that they like and it opens up a new experience for our students."
Marriott says February is always a great month and there is still a lot more fun to be had over the next week or so.